Cyclist Loses Life in Sun Valley

Yesterday, Ted Rogers forwarded me his post about another cyclist losing his life on the streets of Sun Valley.

This time, the victim was on Strathern just east of the 170 Freeway getting hit while picking up a basketball that had rolled out of the park.

While the death will be recorded as a driver hitting a pedestrian since the victim was off his bike at the time, it does not change the tragedy of it all.

Strathern is a major thruway that connects residential neighborhoods on both sides of the freeway.

Drivers will sometimes use it as a bypass as the major street to the south, Saticoy, does not connect under the 170.

I know because I went to elementary school just blocks away from this incident.

Last year, when I was putting together a bike route for LACBC’s Sunday Funday to show how to get from the North Hollywood Metro Station to the upcoming CicLAvia course.

Getting out to the northeast valley is never easy because the poor connectivity of a bike lane network and the high speeds of cars are a terrible mix.

Strathern was included as part of the route and we even stopped at the same park for water where the victim lost his life.

While the street was relatively quiet, during the ride, we did have a few cars zip on by us.

That begs the question, can we do something to slow cars down in front of parks?

We should have same standard of slowing drivers down like we do in front of schools, but we should go further.

If we are to be truly a Vision Zero city, we need to start designing our streets to limit speeds, whether it be with bollards, medians, speed bumps or whatever you can think of.

At some point, we will throw up our hands and demand that our roads stop being the spot where shrines continually get erected.